Computing systems and other electronic and electrical devices utilize components that generate a substantial amount of heat during their operation. Higher integrated circuit die densities and increased integrated circuit speeds combine to increase the operational speed of computers and other electronic devices. Along with increased density and speed of integrated circuit devices comes increased power consumption. In addition to the problem of increased heat dissipation, integrated circuits are becoming increasingly smaller in size. Thus, the amount of heat to be dissipated per unit area increases at substantial rates. Heat is typically conducted away from integrated circuit devices through the packages in which they are carried. In one design, the surface of the integrated circuit device is thermally coupled to its surrounding package to enhance the heat flow from integrated circuit device.
Complex electronic equipment, such as computers frequently employ a number of relatively massive components such as heat sinks and voltage regulators. With increased computational power, these types of components have ever growing operational capacities, with an attendant increase in weight. With increasing miniaturization, demands on assembly techniques used to combine components from different sources, each having their own evolving design criteria, have increased. For example, increasing attention must be paid to the ways in which one component is mounted to another, taking into account the heat loadings of each component and the need for reliable communication of signals between the components.
At times, assemblies must accommodate factors arising from uses and practices unrelated to the assemblies themselves. For example, field servicing techniques and mass production assembly line techniques are sometimes investigated only after an initial design of the electronic components has been determined. Consideration of these later investigations may require a reiteration of an initial assembly design. For example, assembly techniques such as the initial mating of threaded components may be complicated when one of the components is spring-loaded to satisfy demands which may not have been present in the initial design of the assembly, such as that of accommodating a particular kind of the electrical connector. Further, as pointed out above, the electrical connector may have to be integrated with an assembly of massive components.